


Dream Walker

by cecilantro



Series: Dreamwalking [1]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-25
Updated: 2018-04-25
Packaged: 2019-04-27 22:35:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14435577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cecilantro/pseuds/cecilantro
Summary: Molly has a unique ability to walk in others' dreamsWell, their recurring nightmares.





	Dream Walker

It’s been a while since Molly has bonded so closely to someone that he’s woken up in their dreams. The last one was Ornna, before that, Yasha, and first had been Toya, the first time had scared him. It’d been early days, he and Toya had stuck together so much that it hadn’t taken long for them to become close at all. He’d come to the Carnival mentally at a similar age to her, and taken on the role of big brother as he matured, so much faster than she had, he had fallen to her protection. And he’d fallen asleep with his back to hers and opened his eyes in the haze of mind, sights he knew he hadn’t seen, things that seemed unfamiliar even to the body he’d come to own.   
And Toya was there, face stained with ash and crying by a fire that wouldn’t light, no matter how much she tried, there was shouting and the shadows began to close in on her, all Molly remembers now is that he ran to her, and when they both woke up, she’d cried and hugged him for an hour, if not more. A recurring nightmare, she’d told him.    
  
Yasha had been an all-around crackling of thunder and lightning. It was like he was walking in the stormclouds themselves, trailing along behind her as she moved, watching the awed way she stared at each bolt of lightning even when it grazed red lines into her arms. Molly was not as calm, yelping and jumping away whenever a crackle came too close. Yasha didn’t seem to notice.   
He’d followed her into an area of relative calm, what he assumed was the eye of the storm, and watched her fall to her knees and curl up, hearing words he couldn’t, but he could see her cry and that was enough. He went to her, and sat with her, and told her that everything was going to be okay.   
They’d woken together, Molly flopped on top of Yasha in a way that was familiar despite the newness of their friendship, and she’d sat up and clenched her fists and said nothing except  _ thank you _ , she still hasn’t told him what she heard.

He doesn’t remember Ornna’s, not really, just a dark, long road. To the left, emptiness, to the right, only void. She’d walked alone, the further along she’d gone, the more she’d doubled over and collapsed in on herself, when she’d finally hit the floor, Molly had come to her side.   
He’d touched her shoulder and said something and awoke, curled close to her. She’d smacked him gently in the arm and told him it was time to get up and move for the day.   
It’d been a little different with her after that.

 

It’s been a few months, really, since Molly found himself in someone else’s dream. And now, two nights in a row, he finds himself waking up to the elements.

 

Fjord is the first.

Molly’s eyes open and instead of dirt, he’s surrounded with the cool silk of water, it’s actually quite a relief and he understands that he’s dreaming, he doesn’t panic. He tries taking a breath and finds the water fills him like air, he’s quite able to breathe it, it’s just odd and a little uncomfortable as he accustoms to the weight of it and sinks lower, away from the rippling shape of the moon on the surface of the water, down to the murky bottom. He sees a dim yellow light and aims for it, paddling gently to speed his way.   
He finds Fjord, curled at the bottom around his falchion, which is… odd. Because the barnacles that generally adorn the handle of the falchion now all have eyes.   
This spooks even Molly, at first, the eyes are moving and glowing and there’s a horrific cacophony of whispers emanating from them, Fjord’s voice is bubbled and watery as he replies, intermittently, “I know. I know. I know.”   
Molly sinks slowly, until he feels his feet touch down lightly on the rock of the floor, and every single one of the yellow eyes turns in his direction with a sense of fury that Molly feels coursing through him, red hot like the blood he draws for his magic, the whispers grow more rabid and Fjord’s eyes pop open, he half-sits, pulling the falchion up to level with the soft of Molly’s stomach.   
“It’s okay.” Molly assures, gently, without really thinking about his words. He settles his hands on top of Fjord’s, not pushing or pulling or moving, just assuring that he’s there and solid. “It’s okay, Fjord. It’s just me.”   
Fjord drops the falchion to his side again, and curls up, in on himself with the falchion at the core, and Molly drops next to him and wraps his arms around Fjord’s shoulders.   
“Look at me. Look at me, Fjord.” He tells his friend, and Fjord’s eyes draw up to meet Molly’s.   
They’re glowing yellow, the same as the eyes in the barnacles.   
_ Consume _ . The whispers encircle Molly now, too,  _ Potential _ .   
Molly takes Fjord’s jaw and brushes his thumb across his cheekbone.   
“Are you in there?” he asks, voice hushed and somehow still a thousand times louder than the whispers, they scream in protest around him.   
“Molly?” Fjord answers, finally, and the glow flickers and begins to die.   
_ CONSUME _ .   
Molly and Fjord both clutch at their heads, the whispers growing to screeches and coming from  _ inside _ .   
“You need t’ go, Molly. It ain’t safe here.” Fjord’s eyes open again and they’re  _ glowing _ and Molly shakes his head, replaces his hand at Fjord’s jaw,   
“It’s not real, Fjord.” Molly assures, “If it isn’t safe here, I’m going nowhere without you.”   
“Wake me up.” Fjord begs, “You- ah, you have to-”   
Molly pulls at him until he can kiss him, finally, and the second their lips meet he finds both himself and Fjord sitting bolt upright in bed, side-by-side, Molly’s actually glad that Fjord insisted on a double after finding a certain purple tiefling curled at the foot of his single too many nights in a row. Like a cat.   
Fjord looks at him and his eyes aren’t glowing.   
“Did- did you… see that?”   
“I was there.” Molly affirms, wiping sweat from his forehead with the hem of his shirt.   
“Woulda been nice for you t’ warn me about this power of yours.” Fjord grimaces, but he’s reaching for Molly, and pulls him in. Molly cuddles closer and sighs, horrified at how shaky his breathing is.   
“Isn’t really something I can control.” Molly replies, quietly, and Fjord’s arms twitch tighter around him. Molly presses his head harder to Fjord’s chest, “Recurring nightmare, per chance?”   
“How’d y’-?”   
“That’s the only time it seems to happen.” Molly tilts his chin up and lets Fjord press a brief kiss to his lips, “Wouldn’t be surprised if it’s Caleb, next.”

  
  


“Need to think before I fucking speak.” Molly curses himself as he looks around the ruins of a city, still burning. Caleb stands ahead of him, Molly wants to wake him immediately, he doesn’t want Caleb to see any of this again but he can’t move. Not an inch. Can’t even close his eyes.   
Caleb’s won’t open.   
Molly hears the whisper,  _ open your eyes, Widogast _ , it’s like the wind is speaking in itself.   
He swears he  _ feels _ Caleb’s resistance, and the wind rushes hard and pulls Caleb’s head back, Molly hears the choke of a cry from his throat and his eyes open.   
Molly’s heart soars, just a little, he loves the blue of Caleb’s eyes. Even when they’re horrified and haunted, like now, they’re still beautiful. Caleb is beautiful.   
_ You did this _ .   
Molly sees Caleb step forward, not forced, not this time, he moves to each charred lump in turn and Molly feels the sickening realisation that they’re not just blackened lumps. They’re people. Or they were.   
_ You did this _ . It echoes again, Molly tries to call out but he can’t. Not yet.   
Caleb moves past the scattered lumps with an emptiness that Molly knows means he’s been here a thousand times before. Another recurring nightmare.   
Caleb moves closer, and Molly’s gaze follows his, if he was breathing, it would catch in his throat.   
There’s Nott. Half-blackened, tiny, recognisable only from the mask in the charcoal of her hand, Caleb kneels and sobs over her, strokes gently over where her hair should be.    
“I’m so sorry.” Molly hears Caleb choke out, “Nott, I’m so-”   
He cuts his own words off and stands again, Molly hears him whispering a mantra, “This isn’t real. It’s not real. Not real.”   
Caleb moves to the next form, and the shock and horror in his eyes tells Molly that this, this one is new. When he looks, too, he feels his entire form struggle against the paralysing of the dream, he strains and he cries but can’t move.   
There’s Beau. Sitting up against a wall, with a blackening down her neck and chest, she’s been hollowed out with flames and her eyes are glassy, empty, staring at the sky and unblinking. Caleb is at her side, he strokes the single strand of hair out of her face and chokes a sob, his hand to her shoulder.   
Over Beau’s legs, Yasha.    
The bonds around Molly finally, finally fucking break and he takes off for her, vaulting over Jester, he’ll get to her in a minute. He crouches, beside Caleb, over Yasha, and pulls her up.   
She’s dead, doubtless, heavy and limp and her hair is still slowly burning, there’s burning hand marks across her mouth and neck. Caleb is so busy with his arms thrown around Beau’s neck that he doesn’t notice Molly is there until Molly presses his legs out from under him, lying back on them and crying.   
“I thought that my dreams were bad.” Molly says, a ghost of a smile to Caleb, he holds Yasha tight to his chest with one arm and reaches for Caleb with the other.   
Caleb frees one hand from Beau and grasps for Molly, too, they cling to one another and Molly feels himself crying, feels Caleb crying against him.   
“It’s not real.” Molly says, softly, and Caleb nods,   
“It does not make it any less horrifying.” he says, muffled, and Molly lifts a hand to stroke Caleb’s hair.   
“You won’t wake up until you’ve seen them all.”   
“I know.” Caleb shuffels and finally stands up, freeing himself of Molly. Molly presses a kiss to Yasha’s forehead and stands beside him.   
“You are not real, either.” Caleb feels him at his shoulder, but doesn’t look at him, Molly gives a breathy laugh.   
“Oh, I’m very real.”   
“Okay.”   
Molly can tell that Caleb doesn’t believe him as he steps onward, leaves Molly to lie Beau and Yasha side-by-side, even in the dream, he feels they should keep their dignity. He slides Beau’s eyelids closed and makes sure Caleb isn’t looking.   
He kisses her forehead, too.   
Caleb is at Jester’s side, when Molly passed her last, she had been reaching in Fjord’s direction. Caleb has pulled her onto her back, there’s not a burn on her, he folds her hands in her lap and straightens her dress.   
“Smoke.” He tells Molly as the accused steps up beside him, “Nothing of what I have done is forgotten.”   
Molly puts a hand on his shoulder and they turn together.   
The bottom drops out of Molly’s stomach.   
Fjord.   
The face that Molly has come to love, Fjord’s skull, half of his entire body, it’s all blackened to nothing, ash and charcoal. He’s only recognisable by the armor and the falchion, in his lap, void of eyes.   
Molly takes Caleb’s hand.   
Caleb lets him.

They move to Fjord together, they kneel together, Caleb sets a hand to Fjord’s chestplate and whispers, “ _ Verzeih mir. _ ” and again, and again, until Molly tugs him into a one-armed hug.   
“It’s okay, Caleb. It’s okay. You can wake up now.”   
Caleb opens his eyes and looks around, but they’re still caught up amongst the corpses of friends.   
“There- there must be another-” he stands and begins to search, “You are there, so, so who else… Frumpkin, perhaps?”   
Molly searches, too, for another body.   
He finds it.   
“Ah.” he says, “Caleb?”   
“ _ Ja _ ?”   
“You, ah, you know that I said that I’m quite real?”   
“ _ Ja _ .” Caleb is making his way over now.   
“I found your proof.”   
Seeing his own dead body is very disconcerting. Caleb comes up beside him and chews his own lip.   
The are two marks on the dead Mollymauk. The first is a handprint, through his shirt, over his heart.   
Molly kicks his own scimitars away from the limp hands of his corpse as Caleb kneels beside it.   
The second mark is the unmistakable sight of a burning kiss.   
“Something you want to tell me, Caleb?” Molly teases, stands at Caleb’s side and threads his fingers into Caleb’s hair. He feels the wizard shaking under his fingertips, and then he collapses away, over the dead Molly’s chest, sobbing openly, brokenly, Molly kneels beside him.   
“Caleb.” He reaches to take Caleb’s face in his hand and pulls, “Caleb, darling, look at  _ me _ . The real me. Look.”   
Caleb turns, finally, tears making tracks in the ash on his face.   
“I am real. I am here. We’ll wake up and I’ll be beside you.”   
“Not you, Mollymauk.” Caleb sobs, tilts to press his cheek into Molly’s hand, and goes to speak again, Molly hushes him.   
“I’d say that your nightmares manifesting the kiss of death to my corpse is quite the declaration of undying love, Caleb, please don’t ruin the moment.”   
Caleb gives something between a laugh and a sob, and Molly pulls him up and pulls him in to a hug. He squeezes.

They wake up.

“Gods above!” Molly gasps, a little too loud, Jester hisses and turns away from him a few sleeping bags over.   
Caleb is looking at his own hands and Molly was against his back and now he’s crawling and pulling Caleb in.   
“I was real. I told you I was real. I was there.”   
He feels Caleb freeze up with shock under his arms and almost lets go, but then the wizard’s arms are around him, too, and squeezing hard, his face is buried in the crook of Molly’s neck and they sit, entwined.   
Fjord sits up behind Molly to watch, and gives a solemn sigh.   
“You fuckin’ jinxed yourself, didn’t y’, Molly? Woke up in someone else’s nightmare?”   
“Don’t.” Molly warns, and pulls Caleb with him over to Fjord, pulls at the back of Fjord’s neck until he’s close enough for Molly to kiss him, hard. Caleb’s head lifts, and then Molly is kissing him, too, furious and possessive.    
The three sit in silence, horrified, angry, and stunned, Caleb, Molly, and Fjord, respectively. When Caleb’s breathing finally begins to slow, and the tears begin to stop, he sits back just enough to breathe. Molly keeps an arm around his waist.   
“I’ve seen my own dead body, tonight.” Molly says grimly, “It’s not as horrifying as I’d thought. You see that, you see,  _ that _ every night, Caleb?”   
“ _ Ja _ .” Caleb affirms, nodding, and Fjord’s stunned expression grows wider, he reaches out to the wizard and takes the hand not balled in Molly’s collar.   
“We saw you, too.” Molly tells Fjord, “You were-”   
“Mollymauk.” Caleb says quietly, “Please. Don’t.”   
“C’mere, both of y’.” Fjord pulls at them hard, until they collapse against him.   
“No more sleeping alone.” Molly says, mostly to Caleb, muffled by Fjord’s chest. “No more being alone. No more nightmares. They have to stop. I’ll make them stop.”   
“You can’t do that, Molly.” Fjord says softly over his head, “You can’t make ‘em stop. You can only make ‘em better.”   
“I’ll do anything.” Molly promises, hands balling to fists in the back of Fjord’s shirt, in Caleb’s shirt at his waist. “No more being alone.”   
When they settle back down to sleep, it’s all together.   
They won’t sleep alone again.

**Author's Note:**

> I have so much work to do


End file.
